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Old stereotypes die hard, regardless of their increasing inability to reflect reality. Consider the caricature of the corporate fat cat, clad cartoonishly in top hat and spats, building monopolies, crushing competition, exploiting workers and all the while lining his pockets with wads and wads of filthy lucre. Now quick, how do you think our straw industrialist will vote? If you said Republican, you’re not alone.

The Senate is expected to spend the bulk of the upcoming week on their edition of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the bill that outlines what Congress is allowed to spend on most aspects of defense for Fiscal Year 2014. This includes the DoD, some of the Dept. of Energy, Veterans' Affairs, and "Overseas Contingency Operations" (OCO) spending, which is funding for the drawdown in Afghanistan.

Last night, the Senate voted to pass the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act (S. 743) and send it to the House. This bill allows states to band together to form a sales tax cartel under which a business which sells products online must collect taxes for states where their goods are being shipped. There are a multitude of problems with this bill – it is potentially unconstitutional, it raises taxes, it will harm startup businesses online, and it fundamentally changes the way that taxes can be collected.

The Marketplace Fairness Act would subject retailers to sales tax audits from 50 different states and tax laws of nearly 10,000 local tax authorities. Proponents of this bill claim that this levels the playing field between internet merchants, such as Ebay or Amazon with brick and mortar retailers like Walmart or Best Buy. Critics point out that it only boosts the tax bill for America’s consumers and allows state governments to tax businesses not within their jurisdiction.

Dear FreedomWorks member,As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to vote NO on the Marketplace Fairness Act,S. 743, a bill that would allow states to collect internet sales taxes without regard for state borders.

Today, Ned Ludd and his followers are best known from the term Luddite: a much needed contribution to the English language that expresses fear or hatred of technology. But while the word has since taken on the connotations of a back-to-nature, Druidic-like disdain for modernity, it should be remembered that the original motivations for the Luddite movement were purely economic. The textile artisans saw their livelihood threatened by advances in mechanization, and lashed out to protect their own interests.